How a strong Discovery process could have helped big time
Have you ever seen the movie Three Amigos?
It all happened because the Amigos didn’t follow a key sales guideline, something that could have saved them a ton of headache (but would have led to a terrible movie and may have not been the best thing overall, but I digress).
As the story goes, 100 years ago a Mexican village was being terrorized by an outlaw gang, headed by the notorious El Guapo.
They saw on TV that a justice group called the Three Amigos saves small towns from such bad guys.
So they wrote to the Three Amigos offering to pay them if they could help.
SALES TRANSLATION: They submitted a lead hoping for a solution to their problem & they were willing to pay for it.
But, the town only had enough money for a short telegram, having to cut most of what they wanted to say, it was incomplete.
And another issue, the Three Amigos are actors, not actual gunslingers/saviors for small towns.
But the timing was right, the Three Amigos had just been fired from their studio, & they needed the money.
SALES TRANSLATION: They just lost a big client and they were open to any new leads.
So, even with limited knowledge of what was needed, the Three Amigos packed up & went to Mexico.
After the first encounter with the gang, the Three Amigos realized the telegram wasn’t clear on all the dangers, and that the gang was murderous.
They thought they were doing a show for the crowd, a performance. It would be too late by the time they realized it was all too real.
Proper discovery would have saved them and prevented the danger they got themselves into.
SALES TRANSLATION: Don’t accept every client, learn about their exact needs to see if there is a fit.
Now it turns out, that if the Three Amigos would have known the risks, they never would have gone to Mexico at all. Which means they wouldn’t have saved the town (sorry, spoiler alert!). And they actually grew as people from the whole encounter. So in the end everyone was better off (except, of course, El Guapo, haha).
But the ends shouldn’t justify the means. Perform great discovery and take on only the right customers.
